Lily, thanks for reading and commenting. Yes, I generally agree with the "different strokes for different folks" stance. However, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying, and definitely mischaracterizing me as a "seasoned dare devil, live on the edge" traveler or a "Grizzly Adams character". True backpacking or camping trips I've gone on, at home or abroad: ZERO. Here's the thing: You don't need to be living on one or the other extreme of this spectrum. It's not an either-or proposition where if you're not a Grizzly Adams character then you have to stay only in the tourist-only locales.

Quick example: We went to England last year. A lot of what we did were tourist attractions (and you'll note in my post above that I said touristy is fine). But we also took some time out to do a few things not necessarily on the tourist agenda. One of them was a day-trip to Dorking, a little town an hour's train ride outside London that's not exactly on everyone's itinerary. And that turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip as we caught some glimpses of life in a real town, not just the Starbuckses and GAPs around Picadilly Circus (which we also visited). Did that little day trip require us to rough it? Did it require us to be daredevils? Absolutely not. All we had to do was look away from the typical tourist itinerary for a little while.

Example 2: When we visited China three years ago, about half the trip was spent with a big group tour that did all the typical touristy things, which, again, was fine and pretty interesting. However, we also had a nice experience one night when we left the hotel and walked around downtown Hangzhou for a couple hours. We didn't venture down any dark alleys or seedy establishments, just walking down the street with a few hundred thousand other people. We rummaged through the English section of a Chinese bookstore and got a kick out of some of the titles there. We got an even bigger laugh when we went into an underground bazaar with a bunch of stalls, and the "foreigner in the vicinity" alarm went off as the vendors all immediately started shouting good-naturedly to my wife, who is American, trying to get her to buy their stuff. Again, nothing requiring daredevil or putting one's self at risk; just veering a little bit off the beaten path.

And on the subject of travel shows catering to unseasoned travelers, I'm streaming Rick Steves' Europe on Hulu right now, and it struck me how much more informative and helpful that show is than Samantha's Europe series. Imagine that: A show where the host actually gives you tips on how to save a few bucks and a bit of history lesson instead of going, "Check out the $500-a-night room I'm staying in." What Samantha is catering to, more accurately, is RICH, unseasoned travelers.

Sherron, thanks for reading and commenting. My idea of a good travel show is something that gives me a sense of the place and the culture that lies beyond the carefully marked tourist districts, bars, and shopping zones. A shopping district in Shanghai is eerily similar to a shopping district in London, which is eerily similar to everywhere else in the world, it seems. Personally, I travel to gain new experiences and new perspectives, not to shop in the same giant department stores I can find in the mall back home, so I want a travel show to show me more of the former and less of the latter. There's nothing wrong with going to touristy places or shopping on your trip, but if you're doing a travel show, I'd want you to show me something beyond what I can easily find online and in a million tourist brochures.

You're right that the Travel Channel has become very food-focused, which is not necessarily a good thing, even though I'd argue that trying the local cuisine is definitely a big part of traveling. I enjoy Bourdain's show not so much because he chows down or because of his personality, but because he actually makes an effort to show more than a passing glimpse at local life in between the scenes of him eating and cursing.

Finally, you said, "Seems to me Samantha Brown is practicing good safety for herself by not putting herself into harms way." What harm is there, exactly, in trying a dish prepared by one of the top chefs in one of the best restaurants in the country? What harm is there in coming across a spider a good 20 feet away from you? What harm is there in walking through a local street market and seeing meat that hasn't been processed into unrecognizable packages? Sure, tourists should be careful. I won't be camping alone in a jaguar-infested wilderness either. But when I'm staying in a novelty hotel? With a chaperon, not to mention an entire camera crew, right there with me? The more likely harm is to the jaguar than to me in that case.

That's right, Nancy. Anyone who criticizes someone you like must invariably be doing so out of jealousy. Way to sink to trolling 101. I think it's a shame that Samantha squanders the amazing opportunity her job affords her to experience the world in a way that most people don't get to. I don't begrudge her that opportunity. She did something to earn it; good on her. But I wish someone in that position would take full advantage of it.

Agree there are better substitutes for some of the things that e-mail has been used for and will be interested to see how this experiment turns out. However, a lot of this depends not on what you're doing, but on the circle of people you have significant dealings with. If most of your contacts are already comfortable with using the same alternative services as you for work, it'll obviously be feasible to drop e-mail. But if most of your contacts are still heavily reliant on e-mail, there's no way you can drop e-mail without complicating things for all parties involved. If I have to tell someone that in order to have regular communication with me, they need to get an account on a service that they otherwise don't use, it's a fail. I can't tell people to stop e-mailing me and start collaborating with me via Google Docs when 95% of the people I work with don't use it. And unless the people they work with are using it, too, there's little benefit to them to use it just to talk to me b/c it'd be in effect complicating their routine just for the sake of simplifying mine.

Hi Jim. Thanks for the compliment and the correction. I've noted it above.

Thanks for reading and commenting. Good point about roaming charges. Yes, a mobile app w/ offline access would probably be preferable. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of someone popping into a coffeeshop and hopping on the wifi for a few minutes to tweak the next stage of the itinerary.

I agree that a human touch is definitely necessary in crafting an itinerary, though I do think something like point-to-point transportation can be automated. After all, Google Maps have done that for many bigger cities, tapping into the local transit system's timetables to provide directions for public transportation. The trip planner for the London Underground does something similar, plotting trips that include traveling by foot, subway, and buses.

Hi Jim. Thanks for reading, and thanks for the offer! Now you've got us itching to hop on the next flight to England :-) Seriously, if we're back in that part of the world, we'll definitely try to make Dorking part of our itinerary again so we can take you up on your offer. We really enjoyed Box Hill and Dorking, and now we have extra motivation to go back.

Cool. See you in the fall, Mel. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Thanks Emma!

Thanks man. My tweet for it went out earlier this morning.